Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/81

 “Ah! one must never say: ‘Fountain, I will not drink of your water,’” replied the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, left his wife and let her go alone to church.

“Now see, Monsieur Dionis,” said Crémière, taking the notary by the arm, “what would you advise us to do under these circumstances?”

“I would advise you,” said the notary, addressing the heirs, “to go to bed and get up at your usual hours, to eat your soup before it grows cold, to put your feet in your slippers, your hats upon your heads, in short, to continue your manner of life exactly as if nothing had happened.”

“You are not comforting,” said Massin, giving him the look of a crony.

In spite of his small stature and embonpoint, and in spite of his coarse, squat face, Crémière Dionis was as sharp as a bristle. To make money, he had secretly entered into partnership with Massin, whom he doubtless told of the straitened peasants and the patches of ground to be devoured. These two men thus picked out their business, letting no good thing escape them, and sharing the profits on this mortgage usury, which hinders, but does not stop the influence of the peasants over the soil. And so, it was not so much for Minoret the postmaster, or Crémière the tax-collector, as for the sake of his friend the clerk that Dionis took so keen an interest in the doctor’s inheritance. Massin’s share, sooner or later was to swell the capital with which the two partners operated in the district.